Bulkington

Bulkington station was opened by the London and
North-Western Railway at the same time as the Trent Valley line was opened in
1847. The station originally had two platforms when the line consisted of
double tracks. On 14th August 1871 a third line, a goods up slow line, was
added which resulted in the station having three platforms, an island platform
being built between the up slow and up fast lines. A small timber waiting room
with a hipped roof and small windows in the gable walls can be seen on the
island platform in photographs dating from the late 1920s. In all probability
this replaced an earlier structure when the third up goods slow line was
opened. On the down platform, a primitive timber waiting room was erected after
1902 and prior to 1912 (see the respective Ordnance Survey maps) as
can be seen in image 'lnwr_bulk3948'. This waiting
room was, along with the rest of the station much smartened up later, as can be
seen in images 'lnwr_bulk1608' and 'lnwr_bulk1610', and probable was undertaken after 1923
when the London Midland Scottish Railway absorbed the London & North
Western Railway. The station never had a goods yard so not surprisingly the
Railway Clearing House's 1894 and 1929 editions of their Handbook of Railway
Stations stated only passenger services were available, not even parcel
traffic. Being in a very rural area little passenger traffic was generated
resulting in the station finally closing in 1931.

Harry Jack of the LNWR society writes, 'I became
interested in this old station building because of the name high up on the
front. The style of lettering, with a full-stop at the end, is so unlike the
later LNWR nameboards, but there were names in similar lettering ("condensed
Scotch Roman" as a printer might describe it) at Rockingham, Theddingworth and
Banbury. These stations were opened in 1850 which might suggest when this style
was in use, and I'd guess that all the Trent Valley stations opened in 1847 had
similarly lettered names at first.'